Dragon Raja 2; Chapter 164: Labyrinth (1)

Dragon Raja 2

“Nibelungen, or the land of the dead,” Chu Zihang said softly. “The hypothesis has finally been confirmed. The true realm of the Dragons doesn’t exist in a normal dimension. It lies in a strange dimension called Nibelungen, a private domain constructed through alchemy. If I’m not mistaken, the Bronze City that Lu Mingfei entered is also a Nibelungen. Once you enter, you’ll find that it’s much larger inside than it seems from the outside. Lu Mingfei said that everything inside looks new because time doesn’t change.”

Mai clapped softly. “Excellent, our Little White Rabbit Number One has entered the Nibelungen. The signal is clear, and the little rabbit is terrified.”

On the noisy surveillance footage, Lu Mingfei was groping the wall, crouching, and stretching his head forward cautiously. His reaction upon realizing he was in a strange space was completely different from Zhao Menghua’s—he didn’t even try to run… because his legs cramped up. The fluorescent tube above his head emitted an eerie “buzzing” sound, which didn’t bother him at all. He just happened to have Chu Zihang’s earplugs with him, so he stuffed them in his ears. In ghost stories, people mostly die from fear, with the second most common cause being getting sick after a tryst with a ghost. You rarely hear of someone being chopped into eight pieces by a ghost. So he decided not to listen. If it weren’t for needing to find his way, he’d have put on his blindfold too.

“Quite clever.” Chips clicked her tongue in admiration.

On the screen next to them, a black-clad rogue rode the frost wyrm named “Invincible” under the moonlight, followed by a group of underlings on various giant birds and drakes, each wielding light or heavy weaponry, dressed in punk-style armor and robes, inhaling smoke.

“Lu Mingfei… Ricardo.”

“Old Luo looks pretty cool. How long until the dungeon opens?” Chips asked.

“One hour.”

“Have you been to the Nibelungen?”

“No way, who would willingly go to that ghostly place?” Mai said. “But Little White Rabbit Number Two has been there.”

“Chu Zihang?”

“Yes, he’s been to that place where the living don’t belong. Now is the time to call him back. Hey, little rabbit, no sleeping.” Mai pressed the Enter key. A few lines of code were compressed into a small data packet and sent out. It would make a round in North America, pass through networks in six countries, and finally slip quietly into Norma’s system, entering Chu Zihang’s laptop.

“This little thing is called ‘Open Sesame.’ It’ll help him find his way back into the Nibelungen.”

“Only one little rabbit can come out of the wolf’s den alive, right?” Chips asked.

“Yes, the handsome, obedient, polite, yet somewhat cold-blooded little rabbit will pave the way for the cowardly, weak, and useless little rabbit to slay the dragon, and then he will die. It’s a bit of a cliché plot, but it’s still dramatic,” Mai said lazily. “After all, it all depends on what the screenwriter wants. The writer is like an evil stepmother—only those she chooses survive, and the rest can only lament their bad luck.”

“It’s a bit of a pity; he’s a good kid.”

“He wouldn’t have lasted long even if he weren’t paving the way. He’s just like us, sitting at the gambling table of fate.”

“What do you mean?”

“He bet everything, staking himself entirely,” Mai said. “He didn’t have much time left anyway.”

Chu Zihang opened his eyes, his eyelids heavy. He had fallen asleep at his desk. For the past few days, he had been trying to create a new mathematical model to analyze seismic data, but he still couldn’t find a way to filter out the noise. He needed an elegant equation—he knew it existed but couldn’t derive it. He looked at the screen and suddenly froze.

The calculation he had set to run before sleeping had been completed, and the result was displayed clearly. Red lines crisscrossed a map of Beijing, forming a familiar shape. Chu Zihang silently pulled out a Beijing transit card from his wallet, which had a subway map stuck to the back—it was a 100% match.

Chu Zihang opened the modeling file, but the parameter page was completely empty, as if he hadn’t input any parameters at all.

He had no idea what was going on, but he had finished the calculation. Over the past year, all the new seismic events in Beijing were along the subway lines, and the missing Execution Bureau agent had also been investigating the legends surrounding the Beijing subway.

There were still some traces left in the database—the recent calculation had used data between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. The subway doesn’t operate at night, so there shouldn’t be any vibrations, but according to the analysis, every silent night, there were faint tremors around the subway. He recalled the nonsense people had said on the forum. Could it really be that after the subway closed each night, a ghost train ran above the tracks? It wasn’t funny at all—every pore on his body tightened, his scalp tingled.

Something was hiding in there.

He slowly stood up and turned around, but Finger was not on the bed. This guy, who usually ate and slept like a pig, had slipped out. Maybe he really did have some artist friends to visit at 798.

After thinking for a few minutes, Chu Zihang opened the closet and took out a tennis bag. Hesitating for a moment, he also took out a heavy black case.

Outside, the wind and rain were raging, sheets of rain splattering against the window. It was rare for Beijing to have such a heavy downpour.

At 12:45 a.m., Chu Zihang moved silently through the underground floor of the Oriental Plaza. This enormous landmark building, adjacent to Chang’an Street, housed luxurious brands and a Grand Hyatt hotel, with its basement directly connected to Wangfujing Station.

Footsteps approached slowly from a distance.

Chu Zihang hid behind a counter and only emerged after the security guard’s flashlight moved away. During the day, this place was luxurious and bustling, filled with beautiful women, and walking through it never felt unsettling. But now, in the dead of night, it revealed its true basement nature—no windows, a closed-off space, and the colorful lights that painted everything beautifully were all off. Only a few fluorescent lights remained on, illuminating the stuffed toys in the glass display cases. In this lighting, those cute toys looked distorted, the shadows on their faces giving the eerie impression that they were smiling or sneering.